DeSantis plans door-knocking surge in early primary states – report
Backed by a Super Pac and its $200m budget, the New York Times reported today that Ron DeSantis’s campaign will deploy thousands of workers to knock on doors in early Republican primary voting states – repeatedly.
The plan is for these workers to visit the doors of every potential DeSantis voter in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire at least four times, and five times in Iowa, whose caucuses typically kick off the Republican nomination process. The campaign is going as far as to set up a boot camp on the outskirts of Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, to train volunteers, as Ted Cruz did when he defeated Trump in the 2016 Republican contest in the state.
Here’s more from the Times’s report:
Top officials with the pro-DeSantis group, a super PAC called Never Back Down, provided their most detailed account yet of their battle plan to aid Mr. DeSantis, whom they believe they can sell as the only candidate to take on – and win – the cultural fights that are definitional for the Republican Party in 2024.
The group said it expected to have an overall budget of at least $200 million, including more than $80 million to be transferred from an old DeSantis state political account, for the daunting task of vaulting the Florida governor past former President Donald J. Trump, who has established himself as the dominant early front-runner.
Mr. DeSantis is set to enter the presidential race on Wednesday in a live audio conversation on Twitter, and the super PAC’s enormous cash reserves are expected to be among the few advantages that Mr. DeSantis has in the race.
The group is already taking on many tasks often reserved for the campaign itself: securing endorsements in early primary states, sending mailers, organizing on campuses, running television ads, raising small donations for the campaign in an escrow account and working behind the scenes to build crowds for the governor’s events. Hiring is underway in 18 states and officials said plans were in the works to assemble various pro-DeSantis coalitions, such as for voters who are veterans or those focused on issues like abortion, guns or agriculture.
“No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it,” said Chris Jankowski, the group’s chief executive. “This has just never even been dreamed up.”
In Iowa, the group has opened a boot camp on the outskirts of Des Moines, giving the facility the code name “Fort Benning,” after the old Army training outpost, with 189 graduates of an eight-day training program the first wave of an organizing army to follow. Door knocking begins on Wednesday in New Hampshire.
The endeavor echoes the “Camp Cruz” that Senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign set up near Des Moines.
Key events
Part of Ron DeSantis’s pitch to Republican voters centers on being more electable than Donald Trump, who, despite his popularity, is in the center of a swirl of legal entanglements. One of those is the indictment filed by the Manhattan district attorney alleging Trump falsified business records, which the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports now has a trial date with potential significance to the presidential campaign:
Donald Trump’s trial in New York on criminal charges over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels will begin on 25 March 2024, amid the Republican presidential primary and less than than eight months before the general election the former president hopes to contest.
The trial date was announced in a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, Trump attending by video link from his Florida home.
The judge, Juan Merchan, advised the former president to cancel all other obligations for the duration of the trial, which could last for several weeks.
Trump was muted for most of the hearing, which lasted around 15 minutes. The video feed showed the former president sitting and conferring with his lawyer, Todd Blanche, in front of a backdrop of American flags.
Ron DeSantis’s presidential run is no surprise, but his decision to kick the campaign off with a Twitter event certainly is. Politicians announcing a bid for office typically do so with speeches surrounded by allies, family and wellwishers. The Florida governor will instead hang out with Elon Musk and whoever else tunes in to the live Twitter Spaces event. So what’s in it for Musk, the Twitter owner and Tesla CEO whose star has lately been on the rise in conservative circles? Let the Guardian’s Kari Paul, Johana Bhuiyan and Maanvi Singh tell you:
The news that Ron DeSantis will launch his presidential campaign during a live Twitter appearance with Elon Musk marks the tech billionaire’s latest attempts to shore up engagement with the social network at a moment of crisis for the company.
The event – which will take place Wednesday on Twitter Spaces, a live stream feature that is often broadcasted at the top of Twitter’s feed – was confirmed by Musk on Tuesday afternoon. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Summit, Musk called the Florida governor’s decision “ground breaking” and said it won’t be the last political event that Twitter will host.
When asked if Musk plans to interview other candidates, particularly Democrats, he said “absolutely”.
DeSantis plans door-knocking surge in early primary states – report
Backed by a Super Pac and its $200m budget, the New York Times reported today that Ron DeSantis’s campaign will deploy thousands of workers to knock on doors in early Republican primary voting states – repeatedly.
The plan is for these workers to visit the doors of every potential DeSantis voter in South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire at least four times, and five times in Iowa, whose caucuses typically kick off the Republican nomination process. The campaign is going as far as to set up a boot camp on the outskirts of Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, to train volunteers, as Ted Cruz did when he defeated Trump in the 2016 Republican contest in the state.
Here’s more from the Times’s report:
Top officials with the pro-DeSantis group, a super PAC called Never Back Down, provided their most detailed account yet of their battle plan to aid Mr. DeSantis, whom they believe they can sell as the only candidate to take on – and win – the cultural fights that are definitional for the Republican Party in 2024.
The group said it expected to have an overall budget of at least $200 million, including more than $80 million to be transferred from an old DeSantis state political account, for the daunting task of vaulting the Florida governor past former President Donald J. Trump, who has established himself as the dominant early front-runner.
Mr. DeSantis is set to enter the presidential race on Wednesday in a live audio conversation on Twitter, and the super PAC’s enormous cash reserves are expected to be among the few advantages that Mr. DeSantis has in the race.
The group is already taking on many tasks often reserved for the campaign itself: securing endorsements in early primary states, sending mailers, organizing on campuses, running television ads, raising small donations for the campaign in an escrow account and working behind the scenes to build crowds for the governor’s events. Hiring is underway in 18 states and officials said plans were in the works to assemble various pro-DeSantis coalitions, such as for voters who are veterans or those focused on issues like abortion, guns or agriculture.
“No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it,” said Chris Jankowski, the group’s chief executive. “This has just never even been dreamed up.”
In Iowa, the group has opened a boot camp on the outskirts of Des Moines, giving the facility the code name “Fort Benning,” after the old Army training outpost, with 189 graduates of an eight-day training program the first wave of an organizing army to follow. Door knocking begins on Wednesday in New Hampshire.
The endeavor echoes the “Camp Cruz” that Senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign set up near Des Moines.
DeSantis’s well-funded, coordinated presidential campaign to get underway
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The biggest presidential campaign announcement since Donald Trump’s entry to the race will happen this evening, when Florida governor Ron DeSantis officially throws his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination. He’s chosen an unusual venue to make the bid official: Twitter, where he will appear at 6pm Eastern Time in a live event alongside the social media network’s owner and budding conservative maven Elon Musk. He’ll do an interview with Fox News after that.
DeSantis has been building up to this moment for months by raising funds – a super Pac supporting his campaign plans to work with a $200m budget, the New York Times reported today – egging on GOP lawmakers in Florida to pass laws that he’s sure to campaign on and insinuating that he’s a better bet to beat Joe Biden than Trump. If polls are to be believed, voters do not believe him. The former president is far and away the leader in most surveys, with DeSantis a distant second. He still has time to turn it around, and you can bet that will be his first priority after today.
Here’s what else is going on:
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Debt ceiling negotiations between Biden and Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy are continuing. The situation remains broadly the same as yesterday: the two sides have yet to come to a deal, and the US government could default on its debt by as soon as 1 June.
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Biden will at 3.30pm deliver a speech marking the one-year anniversary of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters at 2.15pm.
